The No Cost Funnel I Use to Fill My Coaching Program Year After Year

I meet a lot of coaches who have what I call “accidental clients.” Here’s what I mean by that: You may work with three, four, five or even a dozen people and it’s going well. You’re serving your clients well. They’re seeing incredible results and you’re getting paid to do what you love.

And yet, if you were sitting down in front of me, you couldn’t explain the step-by-step process you followed to create those clients. And without a step-by-step client creation process, no matter how many years you’ve been coaching, it can always feel like you’re flying by the seat of your pants when it’s time to fill your next coaching program (or the empty spot on your client roster).

Which means the unacknowledged underlying fear that you’ll never get another client runs in the background at all times.

But the goods news is that putting a step-by-step program in place to generate new clients will quiet that fear. Creating more clients gets easier and it’s an enjoyable process rather than an annoying sales-y thing you have to do to stay in business.

Looking for a proven system to bring in more clients without spending any money on ads or fancy funnels?Catch my free Client Surge Video Series by clicking below.

I’ve developed two proven formulas that have helped me deliver a group coaching program to close to 400 people each year and fill my private client roster easily.

Neither of these formulas requires an ad budget whatsoever – so whether you’re new to the business or an old pro, my client creation tools will help you experience a Client Surge (What’s a Client Surge, you ask? Click HERE).

Up first, let’s examine how you can create more clients through referrals into a simple one-on-one enrollment conversation, which then converts leads into clients.

Step 1: Request Referrals

I know you’re thinking, “Dallas, I know this! This is what they taught me when I got my coaching certification!”

But there’s a way you can request referrals that really enrolls people in your life to actively refer clients to you rather than the old, “I’ll keep you in mind if something comes up.”

You can do that by sharing a personal challenge that follows the model of a crowd-sourcing or fundraising campaign when you’re going to run a marathon. (Did I catch your attention? Great! For all the steps, click HERE to get my free Client Surge Video Series.)

Step 2: Set Your Referrers up for Success

The idea here is to make it easier and more exciting for the people in your life to refer clients to you. Make it more convenient for them to do it than not to do it.

This means you have to make a crystal clear, non-convoluted request. You have to then arm your referrers with whatever language they need in order to refer their people to you – this might include email copy, sample social posts, or maybe even a telephone script.

Step 3: Simplify the Scheduling Process

When prospects start coming in, momentum can easily get lost if you’re doing the email dance of tossing dates back and forth to find a time to schedule your session.

You can cut out all that busy-work by using an online scheduler like Acuity. This is a website where prospects can see your calendar, schedule a time, and receive an automated reminder email.

Step 4: Create an Incredible Experience

Call it what you want – an enrollment conversation, a complimentary discovery session, a strategy session… there are a million different names for this initial conversation. Internally, I refer to it as an enrollment conversation. With clients, I refer to it as a “quick chat.”

This conversation is one part sample coaching session, one part visioning together, and one part inviting the prospect to become a client.

There are a lot of moving parts to an enrollment conversation. I’ve covered some of my favorites in the Client Surge Video Series, which you can grab below.

Step 5: Set Up the Follow Up

Truth be told, most of my enrollment conversations do not end with me collecting a payment. Maybe that means I’m not a good salesperson, but I don’t think so – I have a 70% conversion rate.

I just know that most of us have a partner we may need to talk to. Most of us have scheduling considerations to take in mind and most of us just want to sleep on it before making a big decision like investing in a coaching relationship. A lot of times I’ll create a proposal so this new client has something concrete she or he can show their partner.

So unlike a lot of sales coaches, I don’t consider the conversation a failure if I don’t collect a credit card at the end of the call. But I do set a clear follow-up plan to keep accountability with the client and with myself.

Step 6: Finalize Enrollment (aka Close the Sale)

Next, do the follow up that you planned in order to help your soon-to-be-client take the leap.

Step 7: Jump for Joy!

Either you have a new client (yay!) or you’re really clear on where you stand with this person and they’re clear, too (also yay!).

If you’d like to take a deeper dive into how you can consistently create new clients through enrollment conversations, grab my free Client Surge Video Series, where I’ll show you exactly how it works.